Return Flight Comedy

When traveling along, I try to amuse myself by listening in to the conversations of others. I find the comments of children especially funny. There were two memorable child/parent interactions on my flight back to San Diego yesterday:

While looking out the plane window after landing at the guys unloading our luggage, a child asked his mom, "Mom, why are all the people who do that black?"

The mom, obviously flustered and not sure how to answer that question in public, retorted, "Because its a good job sweetie."

The second incident involves a pregnant mother who had her five kids on the plane. Most of her kids were well behaved, but she had a 5 or 6 year old boy who couldn't sit still and was running up and down the aisle between his parents (who were seated about 5 rows apart). The parents were oblivious to who the kid ran into, knocked down, or just outright annoyed. There's an amazing talent that parents develop which allows them to completely block out their children when they are acting crazy. I'm sure it helps keep them sane, but us non-parents haven't developed this skill and just want to pummel such parents for not pummeling their kids. Anyway, the kid was climbing on the chair and the arm rests like they were part of a jungle gym, and then he started jumping up and down on the empty seat right next to mine. Without even glancing in his direction, the mom grabbed his arm and told him, "Stop it. This isn't your bed." Of course he only stopped for maybe an eighth of a second, but that's not the point. The point is that apparently this woman allows the kid to jump up and down on his bed like it's a trampoline. I thought jumping on the bed was one of those things universally discouraged by parents. Guess if you're the type to let your kid climb over strangers on an airplane, you probably let the kid run wild at home too.